Say what you will, my vote would sooner be cast for a speed bump that for the current office holder's recoronation.

I concur with TheOtherDave. Mitt was just about the last candidate on the Republican side I wanted to see win. But given the choice of Obama vs Romney? That's no choice at all. I'll wave the flag (and pull the lever) for Mittens every time.

If a Bush had been president and done everything Obama has he would be accused by the left of shredding the constitution and the economy. The funny part is a Bush may well have done everything Obama has.

Obamacare is not much more of a reach than NCLB and Prescription drug coverage Bush delivered.

So at this juncture I'll take the Mitt and hope for the best. Maybe the Bush/Obama clone mold has been broken?

News flash: Bush was Prresident, and did all those things, and was so accused. If Obama is not reflected, it will be the result of the left abandoning him. And it is safe to predict that no future president will voluntarily relinquish the executive powers arrogated in the first place by Bush.

Reëlected. Another oops.

Obama has failed on the economy.

Obama has implemented every "Unconstitutional" breach that Bush ever did (Gitmo, drones, wars, Exec Privilege, etc).

Obama = Bush on all of the anti-Bush screed.

Obama = Carter (or worse) on the economy.

But maybe Obama will Change?

The rubes can only Hope!

Please can anyone tell me what Willard Romney really believes other than running 95% negative campaign commercials against anyone that is running against him equals winning.

A question for commentators TheOtherDave, Mark Jones, Bushdidit, Harry, et al.

I'm a run-of-the-mill dem. (Married with a mortgage - pro-women/gay rights, etc.) and I don't get what Obama's done specifically that leads you to such a violent response.

I too am disappointed with how Obama has continued TSA, chipped away at 4th amendment issues, and wish he'd follow thru on his pre-election campaign to run an open, visible government.

But: Bin Laden's been removed, the wars are trailing down, Gays can serve openly, Health Care is something we SHOULD be talking about, and hey, we're employed (the stimulus worked, and from what I've read on the WSJ, the market is soaring.)

So your screed about his failure ~ I can understand his stumbling, but do you expect otherwise when (a) he was handed a shovel in a hole someone else had already dug, and (b) Mitch McConnoll, Eric Cantor, John Boehner... (not mentioning Fox and Sarah Palin!)... It's not a very friendly political world.

So, please, explain (don't yell, shout, ALl-CAP) what you see as failures and successes of this president, and why I should consider Mitt R. for his replacement. When I look at Mitt, I see another Bush, ("born on third base and thinks he hit a triple") and we've already been there.

Here's all you need to know. Be patient, follow the stories over the past 3 years, including the run-up to the last election.

http://firedoglake.com/

Lots of links, pro and con. These are folks who fully supported Obama. Myself, as soon as he reneged on his promise to not vote to continue the Telecommunications act, which he promptly did vote for, during the election, I knew it was all over as he triumphantly appeared here in Portland.

Bin Laden removed--all Obama had to do was let the military do what they military does. I suppose I could give him kudos for not actively preventing it, but that's about all. And I'll give him ungrudging kudos for ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Otherwise? A trillion dollar "stimulus" that did nothing useful (but funneled plenty of cash to his political supporters). Crony politics (crony capitalism + Chicago-style politics, giving us the worst of both world). Appointing Eric Holder as AG.

Obamacare. Divisive racial politics. Oh, and winging about the mess Bush supposedly left him while talking no responsbility--none--for his own stupid moves for the entire length of his term to date (and I expect no change).

So if not Obama, if not Romney, who?

Granted, only one of those two will be president next year. But if you could blue sky a candidate that you would support, who would it be and why?

And remember, it's not just about getting elected, it's also about governing.

Also, we want names, not just "someone who will (solve pet issue here)."

I voted for Obama in 2008 for two reasons: 1) I didn't think John McCain, as the oldest president ever inaugurated, could survive his term; and 2) the thought of a President Palin was, well, unthinkable.

So I held my nose and voted for Obama, who has exceeded my apprehensions with his dissembling, obfuscation, disingenuousness, incompetence, arrogance and just plain stupidity. I mean, everybody told me this was the smartest president ever. Seems like just another Chicago alderman to me. But one with the capability of spreading his self-absorbed venality to the entire nation.

Frankly, I will vote for Romney this time again for two reasons. 1) We can't do worse than the guy we have now, and 2) At least we would be electing an adult instead of returning to office someone who has shown himself to be a churlish, tantrum-throwing, my-way-or-the-highway overgrown adolescent.

Why would anyone expect something different from Obama after he was elected? His accomplishments up to that point were nothing more than winning a couple of elections. “Present”. Barely.

I offered both my dead spider plant and the dust bunny under my desk as candidates because EITHER would be better than Obama. However, since neither of them will be on the ballot, Romney will get my vote.

2012 the year of anybody (or thing) rather than Obama.

http://my.firedoglake.com/edwardteller/tag/hughs-obama-list/

Looking at Hugh’s new Obama list, and comparing items on it to his well-known Bush List, I find the compilation disheartening. Hugh has given me at least as much footage for a scroll on Obama in less than three years, as Bush gave us in almost seven years.

This list is lengthy and in detail as to what has happened under Obama.

A point to consider is that if a Republican gets in, the D's across the country will be watching carefully and no excuses allowed; if Obama stays in, he will be protected by the mainstream D's and excuses will continue to be made.

I consider much of this kabuki theater and woe to our country, what is left of it......
......in the same way in our city, much of what we witness in our elections is also kabuki theater and woe to our city, what is left of it.

The scene is the same, year after year, the table is set for us, silver and all, place-mats with the faces that are deemed the important viable ones, never mind the others. The message is in place that the others have no chance or role in this election or in being involved in making policies.

Bin Laden removed--all Obama had to do was let the military do what they military does.

I give him a little more credit. It was a risky operation with considerable downside for Obama if it went askew. It was also a welcome thumb in the eye of Pakistan, where and when it was needed. And the consequences are significant in terms of Al Quaeda's strength and potential. Don't' forget that George W. blinked at least once.

The argument that the stimulus didn't help or that the money was somehow misspent is unsupported. And, in fact, it is false.

>>The argument that the stimulus didn't help or that the money was misspent is unsupported. And, in fact, it is false.

Let's see if u still believe that when we get QE3 and runaway inflation. Economic recovery? Hahaha!!!!

It is always amazing to read the self deluded fantasies of our friends on the Right. Lets try and put our dementia aside for a moment. It was Bush and his crowd that got us involved in two wars, cut taxes, increased spending, drowned us in debt, brought on two, count um, two recessions and brought this country to the brink of the greatest disaster since WWII and the GD. We are sooooo much better off now than we were in Nov 2008. If you can read go back and read the papers if the fog has not cleared. Is Obama perfect? No. Has anything happened economically that was not predicted back in 2008 by the majority of economists? No. The only one to shred the constitution was Water Boarder Bush.

The only thing that Fortunate Son Mitty has going for him is he is not crazy like most of the nuts running with him. The Clown Parade was so gruesome that it even made a pasty face prep boy like Mitt look like a genius by comparison.

Let's see if u still believe that when we get QE3 and runaway inflation. Economic recovery? Hahaha!!!!

You inflationistas are incredibly patient. How long have you been warning of this? Three years? Four? What's the 10-year treasury rate now? The core inflation index?

It will all have to be paid back at some point. Whenever America is ready to face reality -- or forced to do so by a big creditor like China -- the dollar is going to sink like the Brazilian cruzeiro. A loaf of bread will be $20, probably in our lifetimes.

Obama has disappointed me in at least a hundred ways large and small, many of which are mentioned in this thread (although some of the attacks are unfair - Bush would have wanted a trillion-dollar stimulus as well, but one even more weighted toward tax cuts). Obama's administration has demonstrated, in case there was still any room for doubt, that there is little or no substantive (as opposed to rhetorical) difference between the two major parties on foreign policy or economics. But there is a difference on issues of personal morality and related issues of social policy - particularly reproductive choice and the rights of sexual and other minorities. This is the one area where U.S. elite opinion is genuinely divided, and on that score alone, Obama gets my vote. One must especially consider the courts: at least Obama won't appoint racist, sexist homophobes who will hold back social progress for decades thereafter as Reagan and Bush I and II have done, and as Romney, a high-ranking Mormon, almost certainly will do.

"It will all have to be paid back at some point" ... and at that point We, The Folks might coin the currency in which it is paid back.

By the way, just for starters so we're on the same page here, about The BIG Problem we have constricting us as the fires of fascism continue heating our bloodbath to boil:

* bin Laden died of more or less natural (medical) causes in Dec. 2001.

* there is no al Qaeda 'group' or 'terrorist cell'; 'al Qaeda' is an invention of, staffed and controlled by the CIA. (like Santa Claus is an invention of Protestantism)

* Barry Soetoro, a k a Barack Obama is a CIA human experiment in mind control grown up from infancy (first in the on-campus nursery care for Univ.of Hawaii undergraduate parents) as a 'Manchurian candidate' ... oh, and by the way, Barack Obama Sr. was unlikely the biological father. Obama's mother was a CIA employee (same as Valerie Plame), and his maternal grandmother and grandfather were both CIA employees after transfer from OSS-wise assignments in WW II.
In such a dispiriting moment as when first learning Santa Claus is a fiction and your parents lied to you about it and, really, there is no Santa Claus -- now it is importantly worthwhile for you to read this biography in your learning Barack Obama is merely and only and totally a CIA 'cutout' and stage prop.

* Obama was 'parachuted in' (i.e., infiltrated, on assignment) among African-American community groups in Chicago as a 'snitch' or 'government informer' where FBI/CIA surveillance had been unable to penetrate undercover; (Black Panthers, e.g.) (By the way, Obama's Trinity Church featured for him openly gay congregants and three men there have attested separately having gay trysts with Obama, one of whom (Larry Sinclair) has avoided assassination long enough to author his kiss-and-tell book -- see: NewHampshireHerald.com/ChallengingObama3.html )

* Romney is not among Republican 'conservative' leaders, of course, he's not one of the actual insiders who all got the memo and didn't go there when 'Republican primary' TV overexposure began. ... didja notice Jeb Bush has been not being there?

* I personally doubt the prediction of seeing "Obama vs. Romney" on November's ballot. Judging by the horoscope of (Obama's) August 6, 1961, 19:24 local time, 158*W, 21*N, and its progressions under the planet transits of 2012 (before November), I may wager that November's ballot shows "Biden vs. Romney."
By the way, would readers here recall (having witnessed) the sociopolitical 'status' of a mixed-parentage baby born 3 months before the mother's 19th birthday, (as undergrad hippie daughter-of-spies), in 1961!, before Civil Rights?
By the way, abundant news also reports other famous celebrity 'counterculture'-type persons (under 28-yrs-old before 1970) were children of surreptitious 'CIA-type' households and parents -- see e.g.: bit.ly/cZbavl )

By the way, the actual Central Intelligence Agency a k a The Company, (in This Economy someone would call itself The Company ??!!), has said /admitted /documented /oath-testified that it (they?) was and did at that 1961 time and does yet enterprise in endeavors of mind control ... which implies there do exist subject humans with minds in which endeavors of control are applied and tested ... CIA says it does mind control, 1950 to present day, and, golly, that's hardly unexpected of a Company instituted to be the hub-central accrual repository of intelligence, meaning knowledge (in a word), and to 'spoke' The (official) Knowledge from the hub insiders to outsiders in social circle(s) where the rubber meets the road as (our) real lives and the world turns.
Notice the people who say, "I think for myself; no one could ever put mind control on me," regularly are the same people who say, "it's imPOSSible that Obama was an orphaned baby adopted in CIA guardianship and brought up tutored by professional spies ('betrayers' by definition) to betray democracy, the American way, us!" Where a person's thinking might distinguish 'knowledge' and 'truth' as two different things, the consistent pattern shows (results) that 'truth' turns out to be that information which is not being said (Goldschmidt behavior for instance) in common 'knowledge'. Goings-on we don't hear of and don't conceive, yet being popular in human nature, plausible and probable, often is revealed being the truth in hindsight.
Why and How can anyone NOT think that today's echelon of empowerments obtain their power positions only by coercive 'blackmail' extortion of others confiding rival coercive 'blackmail' extortion of them -- mutually-assured 'secret' intelligence? 'honor' among thieves?

* Regardless of the names on November ballots, the 'winners' are widely pre-programmed (already?)(!) in computer-count 'Touch-the-TV' voting machines commonly instituted in dense urban precincts where the majority of balloting goes on -- for instance see: www.bradblog.com/?p=9221 . Therefor it truly doesn't matter who we like or judge to choose or why.

For the sake of amicable argument, by stipulating agreement in any one of my *starred points of contention, might it be reasonably understandable that I decry massive waste in all the bandwidth-media 'elections' talk chattering insensibly on Party pretenses and criminal candidates.

What would I do? Dissolve our 50-state country into a half-dozen downsized countries (with sovereign U.N. seats), each of 5 or 10 ex-states, re-Consti2ted, in compass of adjoining watershed -- as conventional for millenia distinguishing European socio-cultural 'nations' as well as geno-typing Asian and African countries, (by watershed), and restoring N. America as it ever was viz. Sioux nation, Cherokee nation, Iroquois nation -- which future course parting instantly pulls the rug out and downs the flying carpet the empowered echelon rides on, disenfranchising (de-Constituting?) all 'U.S.' 'national' 'federal' -powered jobs and un-employs the powerjob holders. (occupants?) They are humannaturally NOT going to self-enact their disempowerment.

This country's subsections are coming /have come apart at the 'obvious' regional-cultural seams anyway, up to now not talked about in common 'knowledge'.

My ideal reform is slow -- it'd take a year or two for all 50 states to secede individually, and another year or two managing to re-assemble as regions. Slow motioned, yet hardly stoppable by the disempowered jaw-dropped denizens of Washington D.C. since they can't command armed-force brutality and violence, (command reverts to state's right). Besides, as I note, re-structuring into self-empowered regions is already going on naturally, albeit haphazardly and thoughtlessly, way or no way.

The swiftest coup d'etat may be abolish the Federal Reserve, requiring the advent of regional currency(ies), and for that plank of singular promise I could stand to vote for Ron Paul. He might be unable in office to abolish The Fed, (seeing 99 years ago how it was instituted, particularly: bit.ly/HhvlYM ) however, that detail could make its bones to become an 'issue' of dimension for global, regional, and dinner-table discussions.

Bottom long term line:
It's about the Supreme Court!

It will all have to be paid back at some point.

I suppose that could happen, although it never has. Under Clinton, when it started to look as if the national debt would be retired, Greenspan — the Fed chairman at the time — went nuts. But what has happened in the past, generally, is two things: first, people keep buying Treasurys. Second, moderate inflation and productivity increases gradually lighten the debt load. Those two things, plus the confidence that we will (at least until we bake ourselves, basted in greenhouse gases) always be able to provide for our population with our labor. So, when a loaf of bread eventually costs $20, it will still represent the equivalent of an acceptable unit of work. Meanwhile, prices and wages aren't going anywhere as long as we have reserves of unemployed and unused productive capacity.

Obama's latest moments have been extremely troubling, even by comparison to a very long stream of troubling moments.

I'll never forget his inauguration speech, when, hands tingling, eyes blurred with tears, I felt so proud of this nation, I felt a slight interruption of ecstasy at his closing statement about a "new dawn of American leadership" being "at hand". ("Gosh, isn't that a little self-aggrandizing?", I thought. Hah! Little would I guess how I would feel about this shallow, petulant, divisive, demagogic "leader" 3 years later.)

His leadership, frankly, is dangerous. Like going to Cairo in 2009 to proclaim, in a senseless non-sequitor to the issue of Arab-US relations, that he would fight for the right of American "women and girls" to wear the hijab, provoked a stunned reaction from every progressive in the Middle East and the world. How to even respond, when the hijab he refers to is an instrument of mental coercion, a symbol of conformity to a misogynist, anti-Semitic, and generally xenophobic world-view, and anyway, anyone who wants to wear a hijab in the US is completely free to do so?

Fast forward to last week, through a bleak landscape littered with the smoking cadavers of statements and positions reflecting his reactionary, prejudiced, women-hating, subliminally anti-white, anti-wealth, anti-Israel, pro-Islamic messaging, and you come to the following.

"if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon."

How about he might have said something more like:

"Young black males constitute 2-3% of the population and commit one third of US crimes. They are the leading cause of fearfulness in their own communities, let alone outside of their communities. Trayvon Martin's death must galvanize us to launch a national initiative to bring down the crime rate of young black males, by aggressive early intervention and targeted leadership programs for young black male youth. Let not finger-pointing, race-baiting, and historical grievances get in the way of recognizing that for every one Trayvon look-alike killed by a non Trayvon look-alike, there were fifty kids that look like him killed by other kids that look like him."

And the latest, "Yo, f--- you, you unelected Supreme court, don't mess with my health care mash, or I might help-unleash a bunch of people on to the streets with my manipulative rhetoric, just check out what is happening in Sanford, y'all", is beyond mind-boggling.